With an ever-increasing population, and complex socio-economic problems, the crime-rate in our country has witnessed a steady rise year after year, since 2011. However, quite incredibly, the first quarter of 2025 witnessed a decline in crime rate in several parts of India. Towns like Mangalore, Raipur, Nasik and even Cochin saw a fall in crime rate as per data released by the local police. Delhi Police’s statistics, till the second quarter of of 2025, showed a drop of 10.23% in attempt to murder cases, a 22.88% decline in robberies and a 10.38% fall in rape cases registered in the capital over the past two years.
Heartening as this may sound, these statistics conceal an equally disturbing truth. Crimes taking place as a result of social media addiction or digital frenzy are on the rise. The numbers invariably get hidden amongst headings of murders and attempts to murder, but crimes taking place due to Insta, FB and even X addiction are indeed alarming. While online trolling and harassment are common on platforms like X and Facebook, it is the addiction to create viral Instagram reels that has emerged as a leading instigator for crime amongst the youth. This hysteria has led to death threats amongst competitors, attempts by one party to murder the more ‘successful reel maker,’ or an ‘addicted party’ to murder the opposer or vice versa, in many cases.
Take the case of Ganesh Poojary, 42, who murdered his wife, Rekha, 27, in the Hosamantha village of Karnataka. Poojary, a painter in the village, frequently quarrelled with his young wife, for ‘reel addiction,’ so much so that their fights were often reported at the local police station. On 21st June’2025, after months of quarrelling on this issue, when Poojary returned home and saw Rekha on her phone, he decided he had had enough! He grabbed a machete and slit Rekha’s neck with it, killing her instantly. Poojary was arrested and confessed to the crime.
In a similar incident reported a few days earlier, Kumar, 33, from Palya village in Karnataka, couldn’t deal with the villagers taunting him over his wife’s obsession to make reels. Facing extreme emotional distress, he hung himself from a tree, to save himself from what he felt was ‘unbearable humiliation.’
On 21st June’2025, two minors aged 14 and 16 murdered a 19-year-old Shadab in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district, only so that they could steal his iPhone which would help them make better quality reels. The teenagers slit the victim’s throat, bludgeoned his face with a stone and threw his body in a tubewell. The police recovered Shadab’s body a week later and arrested the two juveniles for the crime.
In the past, careless uploads by criminals on social media often gave the cops clues and helped them solve many cases. But with time, social media seems to have become more of a havoc than a help for law enforcers. With AI and ever evolving technology seamlessly making its way into our lives, new challenges are bound to emerge for law enforcement agencies. It is time to make stringent laws, take pro-active measures and update the cyber cell to pre-empt its dangers.
Ankita Kumar is a film, television and theatre screenwriter with over 15 years of experience. She is also the writer and director of the short film ON DUTY available on OTT platform.
